I joined the safety team when our church held all women conferences and myself and a retired female officer (my friend) were the entire security force for 500 women in attendance. We carried our arms in our purses! That was 15 years ago. Today I am now the coordinator for our team of 43 members, unarmed, armed and medical. The church just recently stepped up its efforts to "recruit" for the team. We have a tiered system in place just as suggested in the article. One of the members has created an excel program so I can track each new members progress and trainings. Keeping your team engaged is critical. Also, recognizing the potential of women as committed to protecting the flock is beneficial. At my campus (we have 6) there are 3 armed females, obviously me being one of them. We train with an active officer who is a devoted Christian and has courses we can take like critical handgun essentials, stop the bleed. He came to our campus and we cleared rooms on the first level. Activity together is a great team builder but like the article said, we are getting "old" and the timing of this information is perfect. Like Forrester Lowrie in this thread, I am passing this along to our campus pastor.
What is particularly demoralizing in our team is what our pastor said recently, which is that he saw that we have a hedge of protection on our church. I understand, and am not refuting what our pastor said. I believe that we do. We are a bold church and there are threats, but we have gone without serious incident, regardless. The problem is that it can demoralize our team as to the purpose if God is providing the protection in full already. I am praying about respectfully asking leadership to provide the team with clarity, because I see it degrading the purpose spoken to in this article. Asking for prayer from this group as well! Thanks!
This morning, our Security Team met to discuss this issue of bringing younger men into our mission. Last night, we read the article before we met at 06:00am.
Each member did read the article. Each member appreciated your insight as we have implemented 75% of your recommendations yet need more officers.
Two suggestions for all readers:
1) Our campus hosts two International churches along with our primary church. We will contact the International pastors for Security Team candidates. Many are American citizens who speak multiple languages. It seems a multi-ethnic Security Team is appropriate for the Body of Christ
2) Always provide food at Security Team meetings. This is as much a Law of the Universe as Gravity: Food increases attendance. 😁
We recently had a highway patrol officer invited to discuss the recent reports of terrorism with the securityteam. Guess who was NOT invited to the meeting? Yep, only those considered leads were invited to the meeting. The rest of our small team weren't even aware it was a thing until after the fact. The flip side is we can setup range days weeks in advance and the same few people show up. If you want a great team of motivated people, Turn The Ship Around. If you have any brains, you'll figure that out.
When I was first recruited to a church safety/security team all the best points were available to us. It was a joy to serve. Challenging and occasionally an adrenaline rush. I was the last one to leave. My fault!!
This article describes everything that I have been thinking but didn't know how to articulate. Or was afraid to say.
It doesn't take long to burn out. I always stuck around and filled in when others would drop the ball at the last minute and not show up. Many times I worked all 3 services.
I ended up moving out of state, and left the church.
The first paragraph describes our team perfectly, unfortunately. Thank you for the post and the strategy, for lack of a better word, to search for and find new members. Purpose vs a job is a great eye opener for us. I have forwarded your article to our team leader. Thanks again, appreciate all you do! God bless!
I joined the safety team when our church held all women conferences and myself and a retired female officer (my friend) were the entire security force for 500 women in attendance. We carried our arms in our purses! That was 15 years ago. Today I am now the coordinator for our team of 43 members, unarmed, armed and medical. The church just recently stepped up its efforts to "recruit" for the team. We have a tiered system in place just as suggested in the article. One of the members has created an excel program so I can track each new members progress and trainings. Keeping your team engaged is critical. Also, recognizing the potential of women as committed to protecting the flock is beneficial. At my campus (we have 6) there are 3 armed females, obviously me being one of them. We train with an active officer who is a devoted Christian and has courses we can take like critical handgun essentials, stop the bleed. He came to our campus and we cleared rooms on the first level. Activity together is a great team builder but like the article said, we are getting "old" and the timing of this information is perfect. Like Forrester Lowrie in this thread, I am passing this along to our campus pastor.
What is particularly demoralizing in our team is what our pastor said recently, which is that he saw that we have a hedge of protection on our church. I understand, and am not refuting what our pastor said. I believe that we do. We are a bold church and there are threats, but we have gone without serious incident, regardless. The problem is that it can demoralize our team as to the purpose if God is providing the protection in full already. I am praying about respectfully asking leadership to provide the team with clarity, because I see it degrading the purpose spoken to in this article. Asking for prayer from this group as well! Thanks!
Thank you, Keith.
This morning, our Security Team met to discuss this issue of bringing younger men into our mission. Last night, we read the article before we met at 06:00am.
Each member did read the article. Each member appreciated your insight as we have implemented 75% of your recommendations yet need more officers.
Two suggestions for all readers:
1) Our campus hosts two International churches along with our primary church. We will contact the International pastors for Security Team candidates. Many are American citizens who speak multiple languages. It seems a multi-ethnic Security Team is appropriate for the Body of Christ
2) Always provide food at Security Team meetings. This is as much a Law of the Universe as Gravity: Food increases attendance. 😁
May the Lord bless and secure your day!
This was a God-timed message for me and our team. Great reinforcement and action plan points to move forward with.
We recently had a highway patrol officer invited to discuss the recent reports of terrorism with the securityteam. Guess who was NOT invited to the meeting? Yep, only those considered leads were invited to the meeting. The rest of our small team weren't even aware it was a thing until after the fact. The flip side is we can setup range days weeks in advance and the same few people show up. If you want a great team of motivated people, Turn The Ship Around. If you have any brains, you'll figure that out.
When I was first recruited to a church safety/security team all the best points were available to us. It was a joy to serve. Challenging and occasionally an adrenaline rush. I was the last one to leave. My fault!!
This article describes everything that I have been thinking but didn't know how to articulate. Or was afraid to say.
Thank you.
It doesn't take long to burn out. I always stuck around and filled in when others would drop the ball at the last minute and not show up. Many times I worked all 3 services.
I ended up moving out of state, and left the church.
The first paragraph describes our team perfectly, unfortunately. Thank you for the post and the strategy, for lack of a better word, to search for and find new members. Purpose vs a job is a great eye opener for us. I have forwarded your article to our team leader. Thanks again, appreciate all you do! God bless!
What a timely and great article.
Gave me a different angle to approach new team member as well as seasoned.
Blessing